openstack team mailing list archive

[Thierry Carrez <thierry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone,

There was some discussion yesterday around Josh's
diagnostics-per-instance branch merge proposal [1] and on IRC [2]
afterwards. In summary, Josh uses baby steps branch merge proposals,
landing part of the feature as soon as it is ready.

[1]
https://code.launchpad.net/~jk0/nova/diagnostics-per-instance/+merge/44394

[2] http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack.2010-12-22.log
(see around 17:43:50)

On the plus side, this technique allows simpler reviews and reduces the
risks of conflict, so it probably ends up being faster. On the minus
side, it's hard to functionally review or test something that is not
complete, so the load on reviewers is, I think, higher.

Do we have a position on that ? Is it encouraged, discouraged, or nobody
cares either way ?

My personal take on it is that we should discourage it, since we face
the risk of releasing half-implemented features (a database schema
without anything using it). Features in development can easily be tested
in specific branches until they are complete enough to integrate trunk
(that's what branches are for, after all). This is with my release
manager hat on, obviously: I'm not in any of the -core teams though, and
would like to hear your thoughts on the matter :)

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)
Release Manager, OpenStack